Letting Go
I recently visited my younger brother Mark and his family in their home in Connecticut. I don’t get to see Mark often but when I do, the atmosphere is always lively and upbeat. This time it wasn’t. From the moment we hugged hello, I knew something was off. There was a sadness in his eyes despite his smile and he seemed edgy. I figured out what was wrong quickly and felt like a failure of a big sister.
This was the summer before their first child went off to college. Ugh, I thought, eyeing the neatly stacked bedding-in-a-bag and brightly matching towels in the corner of their dining room, waiting to be packed. I remembered exactly what that felt like.
My brother Mark is much younger than me and a gregarious guy who rarely shows any chinks in his armor. We talk several times a month and although I was well aware that my nephew (also named Mark) was moving out in August, I didn’t appreciate the emotional toll it was taking on him. I should have. Up until now, we were all rooting for my nephew as the acceptances and rejection emails were rolling in. I recalled my own experience when my eldest left for college, well over a decade ago. One memory in particular stood out. I had been holding back tears, maneuvering a malfunctioning shopping cart down the aisle of some home store in search of mesh laundry bags and a XL Twin bedding set, when my son called to say he wouldn’t be home for dinner. I screamed into the phone that if he didn’t come home to have dinner with his family, I would throw the expensive steak tips which were marinating in the refrigerator the past twenty-four hours directly into the trash. I also managed to terrify an elderly couple who was shopping in the same section as me.
The summers before college are always bittersweet. Parents or caregivers buy their kids all the things we think they’ll need, help them pack and are genuinely excited for them. But we dread the day we load up our cars and move them out. Sure, they’ll be back for holiday breaks but it’s not about that. For many of us, a child physically moving out of the house feels like the official end of childhood. That realization is exactly what I saw in my brother’s eyes.
My nephew Mark is a sweet kid. He’s on the shy side but is no pushover. I have every confidence that he will succeed in college and in life. To be honest, I’m more concerned about my brother. He is one of the best fathers I have ever known and is incredibly attached to his two sons. As I watched him interact with his boys all weekend, I tried to muster some sisterly words of advice, but I pretty much blew it. How can you explain that bittersweet feeling when you move a child out of your home never truly goes away? Most of us adjust to seeing our children less and less as they, and we, grow older. Hopefully, we’ve done our jobs and raised them to be good human beings and go out into the world to find their way. This is what I told my brother before heading back to Massachusetts. While that’s all true, I wished I had said something different, so I am saying it now.
That little pang we feel in our hearts each time our children leave us? They are the tiny pieces of us they carry with them every time we say good-bye. It doesn’t matter if we’re watching them step into a freshman dorm, or into an airport terminal gripping someone else’s hand. But here’s the important part, brother… because a parent’s love is endless, those pangs may sting, but they will never break us.
